How To Choose The Perfect Toys For Your Toddler

Your toddler is keen to explore the world around them. It’s important to find the right toys to nurture their natural curiosity – but which toys are best for their needs? Find out here.

It may seem like an easy task to select the right toys for your toddler. However, the moment you walk into a store, you’re confronted with shelf after shelf of toys – and you soon realise that selecting a great toy is harder than you initially thought!

How To Choose The Perfect Toys For Your Toddler

Here’s a guide, detailing what you should consider when looking for toddler toys, and which toys offer particular value for your child.

Toddler Toys – An Overview

The best toddler toys often have the following things in common:

  • Ability To Grow With Your Child – Over time, your child will interact with them differently, and learn a diverse range of skills from them over an extended period of time.
  • Flexibility – They can be used in a variety of ways, depending on the direction of your child’s play.
  • Explorative Value – They encourage your child to investigate, experiment and learn more about an aspect of the world around them.
  • Potential For Imaginative Play – They encourage creative and imaginative play, and enable your child to explore ideas, thoughts and emotions.
  • Development Of Key Skills – They help your child to develop skills and understanding in various areas, such as math, language, comprehension, motor functions or social skills.

Top Toddler Toys

Below are some ideas for the best toys to buy for your toddler – and why they’re so great for their development.

  1. Building Blocks – Building blocks offer limitless fun for your toddler, and best of all, they’ll grow with their changing developmental needs. At a very young age, they can be used to develop fine motor skills and to understand key educational concepts, such as adding and taking away, balancing and shapes. As your child grows older, they’ll use the building blocks to create new worlds, to work socially with other children, and to test out scientific ideas (e.g. how high that tower will reach before it eventually topples over!).
  2. Toddler-Friendly Doll Houses – At a young age, toddlers will use doll houses to understand dimensions, layout and shape. As time goes on, they’ll engage in role play with the dolls, developing understanding about relationships and practicing language skills. They’ll also explore their emotions through pretend play.
  3. Puzzles – Initially, puzzle pieces are more likely to be chewed on than used, but over time, your toddler will explore their shape and colour, gaining basic mathematical understanding about form. Through experimentation and problem-solving, they’ll identify how to complete the puzzle, and offering them more challenging puzzles as they grow older will help them to hone these investigative skills.
  4. Pretend-Play Toys – Toddlers learn by imitating, which explains why they’re always so fascinated by ‘adult’ items such as cell phones and car keys! Toys which encourage pretend play enable your child to gain understanding about social behaviour, and can help develop important skills like turn-taking, sharing and manners. Play shop sets are particularly effective for this.
  5. Artistic Toys – Paints, paper, glue and creative materials are excellent for helping your child to develop. Through artistic expression, they’ll learn about colours and shapes, and they’ll have the chance to practice their fine motor skills. To encourage artistic activity, create a special art area somewhere in the home, using a child’s art easel and mini-workstation to store paint pots and pens.

What To Look For When Buying

When purchasing toddler toys, check that they offer the following:

  • Open-Ended Play – Can your child use it for other activities?
  • Longevity – Will your child use it for a long time, or get bored after only a few months?
  • Chance To Develop – Can your toddler use this toy to develop key skills?
  • Robustness – Is the toy built to withstand the rigors of toddler playing?

Finding The Perfect Toddler Toy

To find inspiration for purchasing the ideal toy for a toddler, visit the Kiddit website today. We’ve got a wide range of toddler-friendly toys, designed to develop key skills whilst expanding their imagination.

No comments yet.

Leave a Reply

Powered by WordPress. Designed by WooThemes